The efficient work of any teacher should be based on the specific instructional strategies that help motivate and engage students in learning. I will outline 4 of such strategies from academic literature. First of all, the strategies for motivating students can be distinguished on intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivations refer to the personal feeling of satisfaction because something is enjoyable or rewarding to an individual (Legault, 2020). Extrinsic motivations mean that people perform tasks because of the influence of external factors such as possible sanctions or rewards (Legault, 2020). The first strategy is to build relations of mutual respect and understanding that will help students to socialize in possibly stressful settings (Lin-Siegler et al., 2016). Students need to answer the internal questions about their classroom identity: “Can I trust my teacher?”, “Can I be myself in this setting?” (Lin-Siegler et al., 2016, p. 296). Secondly, teachers can arrange classes about people like Albert Einstein or Marie Curie, showing the efforts these people made to achieve goals (Lin-Siegler et al., 2016). Such motivative stories can cause a sense of willingness to become better.
The third option is to build a system of competition among students in the classroom. Although there is a possibility that students will not cooperate because of the competition, the introduction of minor incentives like small prizes can cause some improvement (Al‐Dhamit & Kreishan, 2016). Also, scholars argue that the online platform Kahoot! increases the ‘healthy’ competition in class (Licorish, 2017). Finally, there can be some restrictive measures to eliminate possible distractions. For example, a teacher can ask students to put all the smartphones in a special box for class time to avoid useless Instagram scrolling and increase their involvement in studying.
However, all the described instructional methods cannot be implemented at the same time. For example, classroom identity-building and the use of examples with scientists will suit all kinds of students. They are effective because of the creation of a motivative and mentally comfortable environment that enhances students’ self-confidence and desire to improve. The competition in the class can vary according to the individual learning styles. In some classes, the full-fledged competition similar to the sporting event will certainly cause some motivation, while some students will be discouraged by such an approach. Finally, some students can be very critical about the ‘smartphones avoidance’ method, so it can cause a negative impact on motivation in special learning environments.
References
Al‐Dhamit, Y., & Kreishan, L. (2016). Gifted students’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and parental influence on their motivation: From the self‐determination theory perspective. Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 16(1), 13-23.
Legault, L. (2020). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. In V. Zeigler-Hill & T. K. Shackelford (eds.), Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences (pp. 2416-2419). Springer.
Licorish, S. A., George, J. L., Owen, H. E., & Daniel, B. (2017). “Go Kahoot!” enriching classroom engagement, motivation and learning experience with games. Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Computers in Education. Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education.
Lin-Siegler, X., Dweck, C. S., & Cohen, G. L. (2016). Instructional interventions that motivate classroom learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 108(3), 295-299.